Bone anchors can be used in orthopedic surgery to fix bone during healing, fusion, or other processes. In spinal surgery, for example, bone anchors can be used to secure a rod or other spinal fixation element to one or more vertebrae to rigidly or dynamically stabilize the spine.
A fastener is typically applied to the bone anchor to reduce the rod into a rod seat of the bone anchor, to secure the rod to the bone anchor, or to lock one or more degrees of freedom of the bone anchor. Exemplary fasteners include set screws that are threaded into a proximal end of the bone anchor and closure caps that are secured to the bone anchor by quarter-turn rotation. A driver instrument is generally used to apply the fastener by applying a rotation force to the fastener.
It is not uncommon for multiple fasteners of different types to be used in the same procedure. Accordingly, it is typically necessary for multiple different types of driver instruments to be available to the surgeon. Multi-component fasteners may also be used, in which case a different driver instrument is typically needed for each component of the fastener. For example, a bone anchor can include a dual set screw in which an outer set screw is used to lock polyaxial movement of the bone anchor and an inner set screw is used to lock a rod to the bone anchor. When such fasteners are used, separate driver instruments for the inner and outer set screws are typically needed.
Also, when installing the fastener, the surgeon must be careful not to drop the fastener into the surgical site, particularly in the case of minimally-invasive procedures where it can be difficult to retrieve a dropped fastener. To reduce this risk, inserter instruments configured to positively retain the fastener during initial insertion are often used.
It can be cumbersome and time-consuming for the surgeon to continually switch between multiple separate driver instruments and/or inserter instruments, potentially leading to surgeon fatigue, poor ergonomics, and lengthened surgical times.